Latest Gear Live Videos

This is the 2016 Nissan GT-R 45th Anniversary Gold Edition. No, when looking at the Premium model, the Anniversary edition isn't any faster, but like the gold Apple Watch Edition, it's much more exclusive than the standard offering. In fact, Nissan will produce just 30 of these for the US. The color is a special hue that they're calling "Silica Brass," and other details include a color-matched VIN plate, and a plaque inside the vehicle that commemorates this edition. Aside from that, you'll find all the goodness here that you find in the rest of the 2016 GT-R lineup, including all-wheel drive, build-in driving recorder, 3.8-liter 550 horsepower twin turbo V6 engine, and 11-speaker Bose audio system with noise cancellation. For for pricing, but you can be sure it'll cost $1,000 more than the $101,770 Premium edition, plus a $1,595 destination charge.

Advertisement

The world of racing may be getting a facelift, if Nissan gets its way. Nissan has developed the DeltaWing and set its sights on Le Mans. It'll will be entering the DeltaWing into the 24-hour race, not as a traditional racer, but as a demonstrator. Nissan will be showing off what racing could look like in the future.

The beauty in this futuristic design is that its half the weight of a traditional Le Mans racer and has half the aerodynamic drag as traditional racers as well. Though it’s a funky design, we like seeing companies thinking outside the box and innovating on traditional schematics.

Alongside the Le Mans debut, Nissan will be releasing a barrage of YouTube videos showing off different aspects of the racer. Here is the first of many tests the DeltaWing will be put through. Enjoy the “Wind Tunnel” clip after the jump.

Here’s a look at the top 10 vehicles with a high male ownership. We’re not all too surprised with the list of cars, minus a couple of choices.

The Ferrari 458 Italia finds itself on the top of the list with 95.3% of its owners bring men.

After you’re done thinking about who might own the other 4.7% of the 458, the list continues with the BMW 1 Series M taking second followed by Audi R8, Mercedes SLS AMG, and the Ferrari California. We’re not surprised to see all these high-performance, lead-footed fun cars hitting the list. I know that most these cars are on my list of must drive cars before I die.

Number six goes to the Porsche 911, a classic, if you ask us, followed by the Nissan GT-R with 87.9% male ownership. Number eight is were the list take a turn for the worst, the all-ever, cookie-cutter-remixed-Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra pickup trucks; following closely behind it the Ford F-Series. Number ten goes to the ever-classic, mid-life crisis Chevy Corvette.

What leaves us bogged are the number eight and nine slots, is there really nothing better out there other than pick-up trucks?

The rumors are true; Nissan is bringing back the Datsun nameplate. Now before your mind goes into nostalgia, reminiscing about a Datsun 240z and the possibility something similar might come back, we can confirm it’s most likely not.

Nissan aims for the Datsun nameplate to play a huge role in emerging markets, such as Indonesia, India, and Russia as an affordable, yet well equipped option out the box for consumers. This is one of the primary reasons why we won't see Datsun in the States, as Nissan already achieved this with its own name. Follow the jump to read to full, yet brief, press release.

Along with Chevy, Nissan is aiming to take a stab at Ford this quarter. Among small business owners that need some sort of work van, the Ford Transit has been the van of choice since the 1970s. Heck, even thieves loved choosing the Ford Transit due to its peppiness and reliability. Nissan believes its new van, the NV200, could provide to be some friendly competition for Ford.

The Nissan NV200 features a 2-liter four-banger with a mounted CVT gearbox. Loading and unloading is simple, due to a low floor, and it can haul 1500 pounds. The cargo area can easily accommodate your standard pallet, if need be.

All that said, I’d still choose the Ford over the Nissan. Why? Well, while driving the Ford, I’ll know its legacy is laced in high-speed car chases, bank robberies, and solid reliability. However, if that’s not important to you the price might be the deciding factor. The Transit currently runs for a little over $22,000 and the Nissan is projected to be within that price range.

AAA has announced their Mobile Electric Vehicle Charging vehicle, which aims to help you out if you're an owner of something like the Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt and you run out of power when driving. The mobile EV charger will provide 15 minutes of charge time, which should be enough for 3-15 miles of drive time to allow the user to get to a charging station to fill up, so to speak. They'll be launching these as a pilot trial in six markets, including Portland, Seattle, San Francisco Bay area, Los ANgeles, Tampa Bay, and Knoxville. The rollout will begin in the summer and continue into the fall.

Ford brought a small fleet of intelligent vehicles to San Francisco to showcase a technology that the company expects will be mainstream in about five years, from most automakers.

Two Ford Focus cars and a Ford Expedition were equipped with a technology called Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC), which basically serves as a car-to-car wireless connection that currently serves as a crash avoidance system in Ford's implementation, and as a wireless toll collection mechanism overseas. Eventually, it could even be used for entertainment purposes.

Although Ford demonstrated the technology in a parking lot outside of AT&T Park, the company isn't alone in developing the technology. Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes, Hyundai, and Kia are all working together, plus truck, bus, and motorcycle companies, said Mike Shulman, the technical leader in Ford's Active Safety Research and Innovation department.

"Next year, we're doing a model deployment in a city where there will be thousands of equipped vehicles and trucks and buses all sending out these messages, and then the goal in 2013 is to start a regulation that will require this on all vehicles. Then, maybe consumer electronics companies would start designing products that could be retrofitted onto existing cars, because everyone sees the potential," Shulman said.

"Maybe five years from now, cars will be equipped with this," Shulman added.

I think we all know that cars are one of the worst polluters on the planet today, and so I find it nice of Nissan to introduce the greener Leaf, a car that has zero emissions. The Nissan Leaf has a lithium ion battery-powered chassis that is good for 160km (100 miles) on a single charge. Best of all, its lack of a tailpipe can reduce one’s “carbon footprint” significantly. I don’t have a price for it yet, but it should be “affordable” to the family of five that it has room for. The car is slated to launch late next year in Japan, the United States, and Europe.

How cool would it be to become a real race car driver just by playing a video game? Ask Lucas Ordoñez, who won the Nissan/Playstation GT Academy contest. The game was Gran Turismo and the prize was becoming part of the European GT racing team. In his first race, Lucas crashed on the final lap, but still managed to come in third. The team will hit Italy next and has 4 more races this year. By the way, real training was included in the prize.